The South Australian budget, handed down yesterday, earmarks $1.96 million for improvements to RevenueSA’s core ICT, in addition to $534,000 for work on its RIO system (RevenueSA Information Online).
The funding is part of the Treasury and Finance’s investment program.
RevenueSA was last year subject of an unflattering report by South Australian Auditor-General, which identified deficiencies in RIO’s “application controls, change management, system monitoring and maintenance, system security design and user access management”.
“Weaknesses in RIO system security design controls may result in the system being compromised which could lead to inappropriate modification of system settings, programs, data and master records,” the audit report stated.
Some of the problems outlined in the October 2016 report were originally identified in a 2012-13 review of the system by the auditor-general.
The SAP-based RIO had been intended to replace all of the functionality in the state’s legacy tax revenue management system. However, a plan to move stamp duty and other taxes to the new system dropped due to implementation issues. Payroll tax, land tax and the state’s Emergency Services levy have shifted to RIO.
In its response to the audit, the South Australian Department of Treasury and Finance said that it was unable to fully address the recommendations arising from the audit until a code freeze was applied to the system as part of an upgrade project.
“DTF has advised that, once the code freeze ends, appropriate changes will be scheduled, with many recommendations addressed by the end of December 2016,” the report stated.
“In the interim, some preliminary control measures have been applied to partially mitigate some risks.”